


Unintended Consequences

by rowenablade



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 6000 Years of Marriage (Good Omens), Aziraphale is "just enough of a bastard to be worth knowing" (Good Omens), Banter, Crowley is Bad at Flirting (Good Omens), Fluff and Humor, Footnotes, Historical, Idiots in Love, Ineffable Idiots (Good Omens), M/M, Non-Graphic Violence, Passive-aggression, Prompt Fill, Seriously they're both complete idiot bastards in this, Vignettes, duels, misuse of miracles, no beta we saunter vaguely downwards, romantic gestures gone wrong
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-03
Updated: 2020-08-26
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:27:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24516901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rowenablade/pseuds/rowenablade
Summary: Love makes fools of us all at times, and this very much includes Aziraphale and Crowley. And as immortal beings, they find themselves with more opportunities to screw up than most.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 32
Collections: Good Omens Kink Meme





	1. 1640

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [this> prompt from the Good Omens kink meme.](https://good-omens-kink.dreamwidth.org/3161.html?thread=2853209#cmt2853209)

Aziraphale pulled his dressing gown closer around him and looked up at the starry autumn sky. There was a storm coming, he could tell. Towering, rain-swollen clouds were already sailing in over the horizon, well on their way to swallowing the moon and leaving the town of Northampton in turbulent darkness.

Something else was on the way as well. Something more…complicated.

He’d been picking up on it for the last few hours. A sense of darkness encroaching on his cottage, something urgent. Something evil.

In the old days, Aziraphale would gird himself for battle when he felt that presence approach. Now, after centuries of similar premonitions with no battle ever coming to pass, he was more inclined to give the armor of righteousness a miss in favor getting a bottle of red from the cellar and opening it to make sure it had sufficient time to breathe.

The dark rider appeared over the brow of the hill just as the rain began to fall.

For the past few years Aziraphale had heard stories in the neighboring villages of the auburn-haired highwayman on his fierce black steed, ruthless in his ability to separate travelers from their riches. While he carried a pistol and a rapier the same as many of his kind, none had ever seen him use it. Those who had encountered him instead spoke of his courtly affect and sinuous voice, his ability through menace alone to persuade his victims to part with their valuables. As infamous as the highwayman was, the authorities had never been able to catch him, had been closing in on him several times only to have him vanish, it seemed, into thin air.

Some had begun to whisper that the man was in league with the Devil. Aziraphale knew from experience that when those rumors got going, it wouldn’t be long before Crowley disappeared for a while, returning with a new manner of dress and purported line of work. Aziraphale had rather been looking forward to it. His own current human occupation was as the respected owner of a printing press, and he couldn’t afford to be seen associating with a brigand. Crowley had understood, and for the past decade [1] their Arrangement had been restricted to one maintained entirely through written correspondence.

Apparently that was about to change.

As the black stallion clattered up the road to Aziraphale’s cottage he ran out to meet it, admonishing the rider for making so much noise. Crowley dismounted with a series of halting, unsteady movements that suggested he was waiting for the horse to do something disruptive and unexpected, like burst into flames or sprout a second head.[2] Aziraphale tried to hide a smile. He suspected, not for the first time, that Crowley’s utter inability to take to riding had become more a matter of principle than of skill.

“Let me guess,” Aziraphale sighed, leading horse and rider to the stables before anyone could come along and see, lateness of the hour notwithstanding. “You’ve got the constable and half the men in town after you, and they’ll be here any minute waving torches and pitchforks and demanding your head?”

“Nice to see you too,” Crowley answered with a scowl. His hair, unbound and falling past his shoulders, was lank with sweat, and he smelled of gunpowder. “And it’s only six men chasing me, last I counted. But yes, they will be here any minute.”

“Oh, wonderful. I don’t suppose you ever considered that I have a reputation to maintain?”

“Course I did. That’s why I’m here. They’d never suspect _you_ of harboring a fugitive, would they?”

“Can’t you just, you know, befuddle them with your demon wiles? I thought that was your usual way.”

“It is, but I’m a bit too..preoccupied for that sort of miracle at the moment.” Crowley unbuttoned his black velvet coat and pulled aside his shirt to reveal a bullet hole on the left side of his chest, sluggishly oozing blood.

“Crowley! What on earth happened?”

“What does it bloody look like happened, I got shot, didn’t I?” Crowley snapped. “Basically keeping my heart pumping by hand right now. Metaphysical hand, anyway. It’s all rather distracting. So if you could maybe-“

“Yes, yes, of course, sit down.” Aziraphale helped Crowley half-sit, half-fall onto a pile of hay in an unoccupied stable. He laid his hand over the bullet wound, the blood flowing forth unnaturally cold. “This is going to raise some alarms Upstairs, you know. Performing a healing miracle on a demon.”

“I mean, I suppose you _could_ just let me discorporate.”

“Oh, don’t be so dramatic.”

“My apologies. It must be a funny side-effect of slowly bleeding to death.”

“You know, in my experience, dying men don’t usually have the energy for sarcasm.”

“And if you think I’m going to waste my last breaths on giving you some insider knowledge vis-a-vis corpse disposal, you’ve got another thing coming.”

“That’s quite enough. I said I’d fix it. I just hope you appreciate the trouble you’re causing.”

“That’s the job, isn’t it?” Crowley winced and gripped Aziraphale’s knee as the angel’s healing magic forced the bullet out of him. It clattered to the wooden floor, and the passage it had left began to knit itself shut.

Their eyes met (apparently Crowley had lost his dark glasses sometime in the chase) and held. Crowley’s eyes glowed orange in the dark, the gaze of some infernal predator, and yet Aziraphale felt a warm surge of affection at the sight of them. It really had been a long time.

The silence stretched as the wound in Crowley’s chest closed up, and when it was finished Crowley produced a handkerchief and passed it to Aziraphale so that the angel could wipe the blood from his fingers.

“They’re nearly here,” he muttered, climbing back to his feet. “I’d best get a move on.”

“Wait a moment,” Aziraphale replied, inspecting his nails closely for any missed spots. “I’ll distract them. You can stay if you need to rest longer.”

“Yes to the distraction, no to me staying. These stolen goods need to be on a ship to Calais by tomorrow.” Crowley had already made his way back over to his horse and was clambering into the saddle with the same gracelessness with which he’d dismounted earlier. Once he was balanced upon the stallion, he made a complicated hand gesture. “There. That should hold them for a bit. All sorts of hazards on these dark roads, right?”

“Now, really, Crowley, I’m afraid I must object-“

“Relax, angel, nothing life-threatening. Oh! Almost forgot.” He rummaged in his saddlebag. “You like books, don’t you?”

“What?”

“Here.” Crowley was holding out a book, bound in thick black leather, clearly quite old. “Took it off the chap I held up tonight. Thought you’d be interested.”

It was almost too dark to read the title, but Aziraphale squinted and was able to make out _The Sworn Book of Honorius_ embossed on the cover. He gasped, and turned a few of the pages, the words on demonic ritual and heavenly secrets unreadable in the dark but enticing all the same.[3] He felt a thrill run up his spine, entirely unbefitting of an ethereal creature.

“Crowley, this is-“ he stopped himself. “Of course I can’t accept it. It’s stolen.”

“Think of it as keeping it out of the wrong hands. Who knows who the fellow I took it off of meant to sell it to. Could have caused no end of trouble.“

“Isn’t that what you’re _meant_ to be doing? Causing trouble?”

Crowley’s cocksure expression faltered. “Do you want it or not?”

“I-“

“Burn it if you don’t. Makes no difference to me.” He urged the horse back out into the open air, Aziraphale trailing behind him. The wind was picking up, and the rain was coming down in cold lashes. “Thanks for the impromptu surgery. Good luck with the constable.”

“Wait-“ Aziraphale shouted over the wind, but Crowley spurred the horse on and galloped away to the west before Aziraphale could finish what he had to say. Whatever it might have been.

The constable and his men showed up some ten minutes later, one of them badly injured by a fall from his horse. Aziraphale helped tend to the injured man, put him up in the guest room and answered the constable’s questions, denying having seen the dreaded highwayman this night and wishing them well in their quest to apprehend the fiend. 

As the posse, now five in number, rallied and took their leave, Aziraphale waved goodbye from his doorway.

“Best of luck,” he called. “I’m sure you’ll catch that dastardly Crowley before the night is out.”

The constable pulled his horse up sharply and turned, his eyes narrowing beneath his bushy gray eyebrows.

“How is it, Mister Fell,” he asked, “that you know the highwayman’s name?”

Aziraphale froze.

“I…well.” 

The rest of the riders turned to face him, some of them beginning to reach for their pistols.

“Oh, bother,” Aziraphale muttered, and snapped his fingers.

In the end, he had a _lot_ of suspicious miracles to account for Upstairs, and by the time he was allowed to return to Earth, his reputation in Northampton was well and truly sullied beyond repair. He moved to London soon after.

He kept the book Crowley gave him. It was an exquisite edition, after all, and it wouldn’t do for it to fall into the wrong hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 11He’d been a pirate for the first half of it, before, grumbling about the East India Trading Company muscling him out, moving on to land-based banditry. [return to text]
> 
> 22In Crowley’s defense, both these things had happened before. The standard-issue demonic mount was bred from a very specific bloodline, and all sorts of quirks came up from thousands of years of inbreeding.[return to text]
> 
> 33Much of the grimoire would turn out to be wildly inaccurate, but not all of it. The section on summoning demons had managed to accidentally get a few things right on the money, as Aziraphale would find out decades later, when, after reading aloud a passage to himself, he was quite startled by the materialization of a very confused and somewhat drunk Crowley in his parlor. Apparently being summoned wasn’t terribly pleasant † and Aziraphale had felt obligated to play the gracious host while the demon recovered from the shock of it all. It had taken his wine cellar years to recover.[return to text]
> 
> ††“Like being sucked through a straw and then coughed up through someone’s nose,” Crowley had explained. [ ▲ ]


	2. 1703

Crowley took a sip of claret and swirled it around his mouth, letting the rich, summery flavor sink into his tongue. It was an excellent vintage, but there was sour taste in the back of his throat that it could not get rid of. He was beginning to suspect nothing would, at least not until this particular job was finished.

He’d come to this soiree at Hell’s instruction. There was a respectable merchant’s wife who needed to be tempted to an affair. Crowley normally avoided these types of assignments, mainly by standing near the back of the room and pretending to have suddenly gone deaf when volunteers were called for, but he’d been asked for by name for this one. Human customs had gotten fiendishly complicated to navigate in the last few centuries. [1] Hell had incubi for this sort of thing, but none that they trusted to get through one of these high-society functions without using the wrong fork or trying to eat the hostess’s fingers. So now Crowley was sipping a glass of wine, listening to some shipping magnate drone on about the tariff and trying to make eye contact with the intended tempt-ee two tables over, all while looking aloof yet desirable.

He’d had to put a glamour on his eyes to make them look human. It itched. Crowley hoped that squinting was in fashion this season.

Social mores being what they were, it took an excruciating two hours for Crowley to be able to rotate into the lady’s conversational orbit, deploy some verbal gambits to undermine her husband and make him look a fool without causing enough offense to get Crowley involved in a duel, and get the target to warm to him through several layers of starched, stilted small talk. So far, he’d earned himself a pinched smile and a polite laugh at one of his jokes. Hell wanted her seduced by morning. They really had set him up for failure, and that was without accounting for the presence of the angel. 

Because _of course_ Aziraphale had to be here too. Crowley had spotted him right away and avoided eye contact. Crowley could sense Aziraphale glancing over at him, trying to catch his eye or drift closer to where he was seated, making Crowley have to practically twist himself in knots to simultaneously maneuver toward his target and away from the angel. One exchange of words and Crowley’s work would be a complete lost cause, he knew. Aziraphale looked, well, great actually, resplendent in his bone-white party clothes, and with a blush to his skin that suggested a lot of recent time outdoors. But he was also just _dripping_ beneficence and general goodwill, spreading contentment from cluster to cluster like some celestial honeybee. Crowley needed to keep him away from the target, and if that meant snubbing him, the angel would just have to understand. It wasn’t as if Crowley wouldn’t make it up to him later.

Aziraphale did not seem to be taking the hint. Crowley watched, with his peripheral vision, as the angel progressed from glancing to glaring to outright pouting at Crowley’s attempts to ignore him. It was incredibly distracting. 

Frustrated and eager to get off the clock and just get drunk already, Crowley decided to alter the plan. He’d been seen talking to the merchant’s wife by enough people; a few rumors whispered in the right ears would accomplish what was needed without him having to get his hands dirty. [2] His superiors wouldn’t like it, would probably subject him to a few more lectures on Craftsmanship and Taking Pride In One’s Work, but as long as the end results were to their liking they shouldn’t come down on him too hard.

He stood to take his leave of the lady and her husband, ignoring the merchant’s glare when his wife offered Crowley her hand to kiss. Crowley accepted her hand, bent over it with just a hint of a smile playing over his lips-

-and the room erupted into a chiming, oddly melodious racket as every bit of crystal in the place exploded.

People started screaming as their wineglasses shattered in their hands. The merchant’s wife fainted dead away, and as Crowley dropped her hand he felt a low shiver of dread creep up his spine. Was this his doing? He certainly hadn’t _meant_ to, but he was so mentally exhausted from all this blasted social engineering, perhaps he’d lost control of his demonic functions? Or worse, was this his superiors’ way of expressing their disapproval with him for going off book?

Then he spotted Aziraphale. Crowley had expected the angel to either be trying to help calm things down, or to be playing his role of bloodless fop to the hilt and cowering in terror. He was doing neither. What he _was_ doing was edging his way toward the door with a wide-eyed, embarrassed, transparently _guilty_ look on his face.

Crowley watched him go, certain that the angel was now trying to avoid looking at him. 

After Aziraphale had made his retreat, Crowley took stock of the chaos around him. The operation was a bust, that was certain, but perhaps he could sell this to Hell as an act of good old-fashioned demonic mischief. “A witch did it,” still had currency as an excuse in these parts, and the disharmony that always followed that sort of thing ought to earn Crowley some credit. 

It would have to do. They certainly weren’t going to believe what had _really_ happened.

Crowley could hardly believe it himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 11Both Crowley and Aziraphale found ways to take advantage of this; more rules meant more morality, after all, but they also gave humans more opportunities to transgress.[return to text]
> 
> 22This technique had actually began to get a bit too reliable for Crowley’s comfort. Humans’ obsession with reputation was starting to worry him; the next few generations were going to have quite the time working these hangups out.[return to text]


	3. 1818

There was a rime of frost on the ground the morning sun had yet to chase away. Dawn was breaking over the orchard of one Baron Calthorpe’s estate, where five men were gathered, their formal dress clashing with the pastoral scene around them. One of the men was the Baron himself, currently in huddled conversation with his second, a footman named Bailey. Crowley and Aziraphale were similarly huddled some twenty feet away, engaged in furious whispers that at times seemed bound to escalate into full-on arguing.

The fifth man was the local physician, his presence being required at such an event. Aziraphale was hoping the man’s services would not be needed. Crowley was insisting that they would be.

“You mustn’t do this,” Aziraphale hissed. “It’s barbaric, and completely unnecessary besides. Just apologize and we can all go home.”

“Bollocks to that.” Crowley glared over at the Baron from behind his dark glasses and clenched his fists. “Bollocks to _all_ of that. _He_ needs to apologize.”

“You might recall that he tried to-“

“Yeah, to _me_.” The demon drew his sword and hefted it experimentally in his hand. “He should be apologizing to _you_ , and he knows it.”

Aziraphale heaved a long-suffering sigh that was neither his first of the morning nor bound to be his last. “Crowley, this may come as a surprise to you, but I really don’t _want_ to escort Calthorpe’s daughter to the Midsummer Ball.”

“I know, but he didn’t have to _laugh_ when I suggested it. I was trying to _help_ him, for heaven’s sake. Better you than that degenerate Swindon, or-“[1]

“My dear, have you considered that maybe you’re going a bit…native, up here? I mean, aren’t you taking all this reputation stuff a bit seriously?”

“Oh, I’m going to take it seriously,” Crowley muttered, slashing at the air with his sword. “It’s about to get _very_ serious over here.”

“Do you even know how to use that thing?”

“Of course I do. I was the Black Knight, remember? Feared throughout Arthur’s kingdom for my prowess with a blade.”

“As I recall, you won most of those fights by knocking people over and kicking them in the teeth.”

“So?”

“So, you can’t do that here!”

“Why not?”

Aziraphale glanced over at the Baron and his second, who had finished their counsel and were now looking expectantly at the two of them.

“It’s against the rules!” Aziraphale leaned out of the way as Crowley attempted to sheathe his blade with a flourish that put it dangerously close to the angel’s face.

Crowley’s brow furrowed. “Rules?”

“Oh dear.” Another brief counsel needed to be called, in which Aziraphale attempted, in increasingly exasperated tones, to impart the most relevant sections of the _Code Duello_ while Crowley’s tried on several new and exciting puzzled expressions.

Aziraphale considered a quick prayer, but decided he didn’t want any more attention drawn to this spectacle. He was glad, at least, that he would be able to discreetly prevent Crowley from killing anyone.[2] A small miracle spent to keep a man from bleeding out could hardly land him in trouble Upstairs, even if they had been getting rather strict with him. 

The two parties met and exchanged brief missives, confirming that the dispute between Lord Calthorpe and Lord Crowley could not be settled by words, and must instead be settled by the sword. Aziraphale shifted nervously from foot to foot as the two men drew steel and squared off.

Calthorpe’s second raised his hand, and the duel began.

Two things became very obvious very quickly; that Crowley was at a major disadvantage in a fair fight, and that Calthorpe was actually quite a skilled fencer. Within seconds Crowley had a short gash across his upper arm, and a puncture in his shoulder followed soon after. 

“Oughtn’t it to be over now? First blood and all?” Aziraphale whispered to the physician.

“I’m afraid not, m’lord,” the physician, a portly gentleman with a handlebar mustache, answered quietly. “Being the offended party, it fell to Lord Crowley to decide the conditions of victory, and he declared it would go on until one of them was too bloodied to continue.”

“I see.” Aziraphale crossed his arms and watched the two men circle each other with a deepening frown on his face.

Crowley sustained another small cut, and Aziraphale could sense the sudden infernal influence in the air, like smoke, as the demon gave up on the idea of fighting fair. Moments later, a large tree branch fell quite unexpectedly onto the field of battle, momentarily distracting Calthorpe and allowing Crowley to land a strike on the man’s side.

Aziraphale could make his peace with indulging Crowley in quite a few ways, but he could hardly stand idly by while he cheated his way into victory against an upstanding citizen. Aziraphale said a small blessing under his breath, and Calthorpe neatly parried Crowley’s next attack.

He tried to look magnanimous as Crowley took to throwing outraged glances at him between wild swings of his blade. His attempts to cheat now cancelled out by Aziraphale’s heavenly favor toward his opponent, the demon was soon thoroughly bloodied and nearly spitting with frustration. When at last Crowley’s sword arm was hanging limply by his side, the physician stepped onto the field of battle with his hands raised and declared Calthorpe the winner.

Crowley responded to this by dropping his sword, throwing a left hook into the side of the physician’s face, and tackling Calthorpe bodily to the ground.

A brief melee followed, in which several sets of clothes were ruined and Crowley sustained a few more minor cuts and bruises, Calthorpe apparently having dabbled in pugilism as well. Aziraphale was able to extend enough angelic power to ensure there was no permanent damage, save to Crowley’s reputation, which would be well and truly finished after this.

“I can’t believe you helped him,” Crowley muttered as they rode home in his carriage, curtains drawn.

“I can’t believe you would do something so stupid in the first place,” Aziraphale snapped in return, frowning at the grass stains on his breeches. “I mean really, Crowley, what came over you?”

“He insulted you,” Crowley sulked, turning away from Aziraphale to peek through the gaps in the curtain. They were pulling up outside the angel’s house. “Not the first time, either. He makes jokes about you all the time, behind your back. Someone needed to shut him up, is all.”

Aziraphale's brow furrowed. It had not occurred to him that anyone would talk about him behind his back, and while it wasn’t exactly a pleasant thought, it certainly didn’t inspire him to violence.

“Well. That’s hardly worth all this fuss, my dear boy.”

Crowley shrugged, and then leaned forward to open the door so Aziraphale could take his leave.

“Think I’ll be going down for a nap for a while,” he remarked with forced nonchalance. “Wait for this to blow over.”

“That may be for the best,” Aziraphale answered as he disembarked. “Should I expect to hear from you for New Years?”

“Nah, may be a bit longer than that. Tell you what, why don’t you wake me when Calthorpe’s dead?” Crowley’s eyes glittered behind his dark glasses.

“That could be a while,” Aziraphale said slowly. He bit the inside of his cheek to stifle a laugh. “He seemed in rather good health…back there…”

He failed in his attempt to keep from laughing, and was met with a scowl. 

“Yeah, well, it’s an unpredictable world, isn’t it?” Crowley was now drawing with one bloody finger on the partition in front of him, tracing unreadable swirls onto the black leather. “All sorts of misfortunes can befall a man.”

“Crowley…don’t you _dare_.”

“Thwart me if you can, angel.” Crowley winked and rapped on the partition with his knuckles, and the carriage sped away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 11For readers who may be thinking this is a terribly far-fetched and nonsensical reason for a duel, please note that actual historical reasons for duels have included arguments over flower arrangements, and one man accusing another of “waltzing against him” at a party.[return to text]
> 
> 22Or not so discreetly. After Crowley removed his jacket, it was immediately clear to Aziraphale† that the demon had several knives concealed beneath his waistcoat, which he only discarded after the angel’s vehement insistence.[return to text]
> 
> ††Who by this point had a very detailed idea of how Crowley was supposed to fill out a set of clothes [ ▲ ]


	4. 1887

So, it turned out “a while”, for Crowley, meant “at least seventy years”. That struck Aziraphale as something that would have been good to know with regards to their Arrangement, among other things.[1]

As the decades passed, Aziraphale’s moods shifted from wistful to frustrated to worried, and in the winter of 1887 he found himself outside of Crowley’s London townhouse, knocking with increasing impatience at the door when it became apparent the old-fashioned doorbell existed entirely for show.

It was clear that occult wards had been put on the place to keep curious humans away. Aziraphale could feel them nudging at him, muttering _Nothing to see here, best move along_ on some plane his physical ears could not detect. Had he not known what was happening he would have found it quite difficult to not do as they suggested and shove off, but as a fellow professional he just felt irritated. What was Crowley up to, that he needed to stay in isolation for so long? Had he decided on his own to end the Arrangement?

_Has he found Someone Else?_

Aziraphale tried to push that thought away, but it was stubborn, and flitted about his brain like a bat. What if “going down for a nap” was just a euphemism, and Crowley was holed up in here in some infernal love-nest and Aziraphale was a fool to not have realized it sooner and-

It was easy enough to break the lock on the door, and the wards on the place ensured that no passer-by took notice.

Once inside the house, Aziraphale’s worries were somewhat mollified. It was clear by the state of the place that no one had been moving about for some time. A thick coat of dust lay on every surface and the air possessed a stale, inert, almost tomb-like quality. There was no sound except the ticking of a grandfather clock in the parlor.

It was also freezing, almost as cold as the streets outside. Aziraphale could see his breath fogging in the air as he slowly ascended the staircase.

He knew he ought to leave, that he had already gone well past the boundaries of propriety by breaking in, but now that that irrational fit of jealousy had been put to rest, he found he was still concerned for Crowley’s well-being. There was still the possibility that Crowley had not meant to be away for this long, and some misfortune had befallen him.[2]

Aziraphale let himself into the bedroom and was immediately relieved to see Crowley, sprawled on his stomach across the four-poster bed, fast asleep and looking rather pleased about it. 

That relief ended when he took in the alarming state of the bedroom.

It wasn’t that the decor was not to Aziraphale’s taste.[3] It was that the every surface in the bedroom was crawling with fat, black flies. They grouped together in clumps on the curtains and hovered above the bed in a thick, undulating wave. None of them seemed to actually be on Crowley himself, but it seemed obvious that they were gathered here because of him. Aziraphale wrinkled his nose and took a few hesitant steps toward the bed.

Closer, he could see a shimmer in the air above the sleeping demon, like a heat haze. He put out a hand and felt that it _was_ heat, not enough to burn but past the point of being tolerable. He withdrew his hand and noticed that the flies had become significantly more active upon his approach. They began to rise from the surfaces of the bedroom in black ribbons, swirling around him, their collective hum growing louder. 

_Crowley. Izzz that you?_

The words were coming from the flies’ buzzing drone. Aziraphale’s jaw dropped and he quickly snapped it shut as the flies hovered dangerously close to his face.

_Lord Beelzebub been very eager to zzzpeak with you, Crowley_ , that loathsome hum continued. _They are mozzt dizzpleased with you for ignoring their mezzages._

Aziraphale glanced at Crowley, still dead to the world. The insects appeared to have abandoned him in favor of swarming around the only waking presence in the room. His first instinct was to grab Crowley’s shoulder and shake him until he woke up. It wouldn’t be pleasant, reaching through that protective wall of heat, but Aziraphale had no doubt he could endure it to spare his friend an awful lot of trouble.

But he looked so peaceful, with his hair falling in his face. And Aziraphale _did_ feel bad about breaking in. Perhaps he could make up for it by doing the demon a favor. It was no different than their Arrangement had always been, wasn’t it? Covering for one another?

“Aaaah…” Aziraphale made some strangled noise that approximated Crowley’s voice enough to set the flies to new heights of activity. They brushed unbearably close, close enough that Aziraphale could feel their wings brush against his eyelashes, and he tried not to shudder. Surely Crowley would not shudder in this situation.

_What newzz?_ , they buzzed. _What hazz kept you, Crowley, that Lord Beelzebub hazz needed to send so many of uzz over the yearzz? What hazz kept you?_

“Right,” Aziraphale answered, trying to affect Crowley’s drawl while simultaneously twisting about to keep the flies from alighting on his face. “Err…listen, tell Lord Beelzebub I’m awfully sorry about not checking in. I’ve just been…um…working on something really big. A surprise.”

A confused ripple moved through the swarm. _Our Mazzter doezz not like surprizzezz._

“They’ll like this one!” Aziraphale’s tone was straying back into his usual precise cheeriness, and he struggled to rein it in. “I mean, it’s gonna be wicked, innit? Real, um, nauseating stuff, yeah? Make the Spanish Inquisition look like a bloody garden party.”

Aziraphale stamped his foot in fury at himself for getting carried away, but at least the flies seemed to take it for general enthusiasm.

_Very well_ , they said. _Free us, and we will relay your mezzage to our Mazzter._

Moving as one, the flies gathered in a heavy clump near the window. Aziraphale winced as he squeezed past them, desperate not to let that writhing, droning mass touch him, and opened the window to let the cold winter air come tumbling in.

The flies shot out into the icy blue sky, and within seconds looked like any other wisp of smoke floating over London.

For a moment Aziraphale considered cursing. Well, he’d made a bit of a mess of this, hadn’t he? Now Hell was going to be expecting some grand feat of evil from Crowley, and likely would be very cross indeed when such a disaster failed to happen. Then again, Aziraphale had no idea how long they had been trying to get in touch with the demon, and how close they were to paying a visit on their own to find Crowley sleeping on the job. At the very least, Aziraphale had bought his friend some time.

Still, if Crowley didn’t wake up and do something pretty damned evil soon, Hell would doubtless have more questions. 

Unless…well.

As an angel, Aziraphale knew it was highly inappropriate for him to _hope_ the humans did something heinous enough that Crowley could take credit for it. And obviously, if Aziraphale knew ahead of time that something horrible was going to happen in London, it was his duty to stop it.

But London was a big city, full of unsavory neighborhoods, and Aziraphale couldn’t be expected to keep an eye on all of them, could he?

And, well, he was a resident of the city. He read the papers, same as anyone. No one could blame him for keeping abreast of the local news, and keeping his eyes open for any…suitable occurrences to inform Hell about.

He shut the window, cast one final glance at Crowley’s sleeping form, and then let himself out of the town house and back into the cold, grey streets.

He bought a newspaper on his way home.

——

Fifteen years later, Crowley woke up, had an extremely luxurious stretch, took a quick glance out the window to make sure that London hadn’t burned down or been overrun by sentient jellyfish in his absence, and then set about catching up on what he’d missed.

He spent some time in the lavatory splashing water on various parts of himself. He dressed in the plainest set of clothes he had, certain that anything fashionable would be conspicuously out of date by now. He banished the dust and the cobwebs with a wave of his hand and headed downstairs, refreshed and ready to acquaint himself with whatever century this turned out to be.

He was also very keen to track down Aziraphale. He’d dreamed of the angel, somewhere in that black velvet void of sleep. Of his voice, and of his presence, warm and comforting.

There was a note in a black envelope that had been slipped under his door.

Crowley frowned and picked it up, recognizing Beelzebub’s seal right away. He’d expected to have some explaining to do about not checking in for so long, but he didn’t think this note was an angry one. It wasn’t smoking, for one thing, and it didn’t bite his hand when he picked it up.

He pulled out the unpleasantly damp letter and read it, then read it again. It appeared to be a personal note from the Lord of the Flies themselves, commending him for his ingenuity with the Whitechapel business, and promising a formal recognition from the Dark Council when he returned to Hell.

It ended with, “Also, we are all very interested in learning the identity of your mortal operative, the one the human papers are calling Jack the Ripper. Several men have turned up Down Here claiming to be him, and we’ve all got bets going on which one is telling the truth. We’d love it if he’d be a guest speaker at the next disembowelment conference, whoever he is.”

Crowley folded the letter carefully, and tucked it into his pocket.

He’d planned to start catching up on the world by finding a newspaper, but he sensed now that wouldn’t cut it.

He desperately hoped that pubs still existed. He had a feeling it was going to take several drinks to wrap his brain around what had been going on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 11Or rather, Other Things, as Aziraphale tended to think of them now. Aspects of their relationship had been growing capital letters at an alarming clip since the Exploding Crystal Incident.[return to text]
> 
> 22Not as much of a possibility as Aziraphale might have imagined, though. The wards on the house were one of many defensive measures Crowley had put up, as several residents of London’s insane asylums could have informed him, had they been able to stop twitching and rambling about giant snakes long enough to string a sentence together.[return to text]
> 
> 33Although it wasn’t. _Really, Crowley, black and gold wallpaper?_ [return to text]


	5. 1926

It was November, and yet the weather in London had been unusually fine for several weeks. Crisp sunny days gave way to cool, starry nights, harvests had been bountiful and rich and poor folk alike walked with a bit of a spring in their step.

For the sake of his professional reputation, Crowley would hardly dare to take credit out loud. Yet he had, as always, his nagging suspicions. After all, it wasn’t often that being of his metaphysical influence found themselves head over heels in love.

Aziraphale stood on the walk outside A.Z. Fell and Company Booksellers, regarding the object of Crowley’s new infatuation as though he expected it to go for his neck at any moment.

“It looks so…mean,” he finally said.

Crowley ran his hand[1] over the Bentley’s roof, relishing the shine of the paint. The machine purred under his touch the way that any horse he’d ever wrestled a saddle onto hadn’t. Every sodding horse on the planet could join their horned cousins in the annals of extinction, as far as Crowley was concerned. He had transportation proper sorted from now on.

“Not mean,” Crowley sniffed. “Bold. Powerful.”

“It’s awfully loud, isn’t it?”

“ _Assertive_.”

Knowing an irrationally besotted being when he saw one, Aziraphale gave up this line of conversation and smiled charitably. “I’m pleased you’re so happy with it, my dear.”

“Get in.”

Aziraphale’s smile evaporated. “You can’t be serious.”

Crowley laughed. “Of course I’m serious! Why do you think I’m here? I thought you’d like to go for a spin. See the countryside.”

“I couldn’t possibly be seen in one of those,” Aziraphale explained, glancing momentarily skyward. A large cloud was just encroaching upon the blinding sun.

When he looked back at Crowley, the demon looked utterly crestfallen.

“Why not?”

“They’re evil machines, Crowley!”

“They aren’t either! Where on earth did you get that idea?”

“Well, several of the letters to the _Gazette_ that you’ve written, for one. Did you really think I wouldn’t figure out who ‘J.A. Roquiel’ was? The last one was literally titled, ‘Horseless Carriages: Man’s Most Evil Invention’.”

Crowley motioned for Aziraphale to keep his voice down. “That was just so I could get You-Know-Where to reimburse me for petrol.[2] Come off it, you know that _objects_ can’t be evil. It’s the intent behind them.”

“Your intent is exactly what I’m worried about.”

A spray of cold rain began to fall, causing passers-by to scurry for cover. 

“Oh, do stop that,” Aziraphale scolded. 

Water pooled on the brim of Crowley’s fedora and fell in sad little trickles in front of his pouting features.

“Fine!” Aziraphale snapped. “I’ll take a drive with you if you promise not to run anybody down.”

“And upset the alignment? What do you take me for?” Crowley grinned and went around to open the passenger-side door, the rain coming to a stop.

Several minutes passed in which Crowley navigated the car through London’s streets with increasing recklessness. The concept of “backseat driving” had been invented but had yet to be popularized[3] and so, desperate for a conversation to take his mind off their most-assuredly imminent destruction, Aziraphale mentally flipped through topics. Food was out of the question, as his stomach seemed to hate cars far more urgently than the rest of him did. Politics, fashion and the theatre were all subjects that might agitate Crowley, and Aziraphale had no desire to see what effect that would have on his driving habits. That left work.

“Do you really believe that?” he asked. “That objects can’t be inherently evil?”

“Course I do,” Crowley answered, swerving around two boys fighting over a kickball. “Why would that have changed all of a sudden?”

“Well, it’s different now, isn’t it?” Aziraphale tried to look at Crowley and found moving his head made the motion sickness worse by several degrees. “Machine guns. Mustard gas. Flamethrowers. How could those possibly be used for good?”

“Thought your side approved of the Great War.”

“I wouldn’t say _approved_. We were encouraged to see opportunity in crisis, of course.”

“Of course,” Crowley mocked.

“But wouldn’t you agree that those things are evil?”

“I agree that they’re _things_ , angel. Maybe evil people _made_ them, but the things themselves are neutral.”

“Even if the only thing they can do is cause harm?”

“’S’no different than a sword. You can use it to protect a village, or slaughter one. It’s all intent.”

“What about the Spanish Inquisition? All those dreadful machines they came up with to torture people? Surely _those_ are pure evil?”

Crowley scowled. “A car is a far cry from an iron maiden.”

“Yes, one could argue they’re worse! They’re unsightly, they befoul the air, they cause _countless_ injuries-“

“My car is _not_ evil, Aziraphale.”

“Maybe you just think that because you like it so much,” Aziraphale continued airily. 

“And?”

“And, subjective feelings for something or someone don’t change its objective nature. I mean, I love you, but that doesn’t change what you _are_ , does it?”

Crowley drove into a hedge.

As far as car crashes went, it hardly qualified as historic.[4] A frantic snapping of branches, a squeal of brakes in counterpoint to Aziraphale’s yelp of panic and some very graphic cursing from Crowley, and it was over. There was nothing after but the _tick_ of cooling metal and the hedge’s traumatized rustling.[5]

Once he’d gotten over the shock of not being discorporated by coming to such an abrupt stop, Aziraphale cringed in his seat. Crowley would undoubtedly be furious with him over the damage to his beloved new vehicle. He eyed the demon warily. Crowley was looking at him with his mouth hanging open.

“I’m so, so sorry-“ Aziraphale began.

“You said you…” Crowley swallowed, unable to force out the rest of it.

“I…? Oh.” Aziraphale smiled cautiously. “Well, yes. Surely you knew that already?”

“You’ve never _said_ it before!”

Aziraphale, who had not said “I love you” to Crowley for the same reason that people don’t go around saying things like, “Do you reckon the sun will be rising in the east again tomorrow?” or “Good morning, Percy, still got two legs and two arms, I see, jolly good,” took a moment to mull this over. 

“I suppose I haven’t,” he allowed. “Should I…not do it again?”

Crowley was smiling. Not a wicked, speed-demon grin but the soft, secretive smile of one listening to much-loved, familiar music.

“No, you can say it,” he answered. He put the car in reverse and backed out into the road, snapping to dismiss the branches tangled in the bumper, then putting the hedge to rights.

“Maybe not when I’m driving,” he amended when they went on their way again.

The fine weather continued in London right on through Christmas.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 11Gloved, of course. Crowley wasn’t taking any chances with smudges, even if he didn’t technically have fingerprints.[return to text]
> 
> 22Hell’s Payroll Department insisted that demons living among humans use human money whenever possible, on the principle that the more cursed bills were circulated into the economy, the better. This strategy, among other things, would lead to some very unexpected global events in a few short years. A consequence of this was Hell becoming far stricter with the expense accounts, which would lead to Crowley’s first[†] miraculous upgrade of the Bentley, or, more specifically, to its gas tank.[return to text]
> 
> ††And only, until the invention of the eight-track player in 1965.[return to text]
> 
> 33Crowley had been at the infernal seminar where the concept was introduced and resolved to keep it from Aziraphale’s knowledge as long as possible.[return to text]
> 
> 44It was not the first car accident to happen as a result of a passenger revealing certain feelings to the driver at the exact wrong moment, but it was the first such occurrence not to result in rather tragic injury, because Aziraphale was not entirely wrong.[return to text]
> 
> 55A hedge which, it should be noted, had been planted as an act of base aggression in an escalating conflict between two neighbors that was making the both of them, and their wives, miserable, such that all four of them found themselves developing rather florid stomachaches at the sight of the thing, because Crowley was not entirely wrong either.[return to text]


End file.
